Karl Franzens University Graz | Graz University of Technology | |
Nanophotonics Ernst Abbe once pointed out, that optics below the dimensions of the wavelength of light is pretty cumbersome. This claim kept its dogmatic character for one century. However, it has recently been shown that a resolution of some tens of nanometres is indeed possible in three dimensional far-field fluorescence microscopy [2]. Another field of optics, where a “half wavelength criterion” seemed to apply, are microresonators where the smallest thinkable resonator was thought to be two mirrors spaced by at least half a wavelength. Nevertheless, nanoresonators below this limit have recently been realized [4]. These, and similar experiments have established the field of „nanophotonics“. Applications include microscopy [2], biosensing [7,8], optoelectronics [6], plasmonics [1,3,4] and metamaterials [5,9]. |